I hurried on, for I was terribly afraid, and yet at each step I felt more glad that Eli had taken the papers. All the time Eli kept close to my heels, sometimes laughing at my fears, and at others grumbling with me. Presently I seemed to see things in a new light. Wasn't this apparition merely the creature of my own imaginations? Had I not conjured up the spectre myself?
"Eli," I said presently, trying to be brave, "you are right, I am a fool. That thing was nothing but my fancy."
"Aw, aw!" laughed Eli.
"Come," I said, "there's a furze-cutter's hut somewhere, I saw it as we crossed the downs to-day. Let us go and read the papers."
"Tha's yer soarts," replied Eli. "'Ere we be."
With that we found our way to a hut which some one had built as a temporary shelter, and a few minutes later Eli had lit another candle. The wind which had risen howled across Goonhilly Downs, on which the hut was built, but the place was sufficiently sheltered to allow the candle to burn steadily.
"Here 'tes," cried Eli, safely; "raid, Maaster Jasper, raid."
A nervous dread again laid hold of me as I took the thing in my hands, but mastering my weakness, I cut the threads, and a few minutes later I had smoothed out the piece of paper on which the directions, of which Eli had so often spoken, were written.
The following is a copy, as nearly as I can make it, although it is impossible for me to reproduce the peculiar characters in which it was written.